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Russia says it will suspend UN-brokered Ukraine export deal

Published

2 years ago

9 minute read

By Andrew Meldrum in Kyiv

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia announced Saturday that it will move to suspend its implementation of a U.N.-brokered grain deal that has seen more than 9 million tons of grain exported from Ukraine during the war and has brought down soaring global food prices.

The Russian Defense Ministry cited an alleged Ukrainian drone attack against Russia’s Black Sea Fleet ships moored off the coast of occupied Crimea, which Russia says took place early Saturday, as the reason for the move. Ukraine has denied the attack, saying that the Russians mishandled their own weapons.

The Russian declaration came one day after U.N. chief Antonio Guterres urged Russia and Ukraine to renew the grain export deal. Guterres also urged other countries, mainly in the West, to expedite the removal of obstacles blocking Russian grain and fertilizer exports.

The U.N. chief said the grain deal — brokered by the United Nations and Turkey in July and which expires on Nov. 19 — helps “to cushion the suffering that this global cost-of-living crisis is inflicting on billions of people,” his spokesman said.

A Guterres spokesman said U.N. officials were in touch with Russian authorities over the announced suspension.

“It is vital that all parties refrain from any action that would imperil the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which is a critical humanitarian effort that is clearly having a positive impact on access to food for millions of people,” said the spokesman, Stephane Dujarric.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Saturday accused British specialists of being involved in the alleged attack by drones on Russian ships in Crimea.

“In connection with the actions of Ukrainian armed forces, led by British specialists, directed, among other things, against Russian ships that ensure the functioning of the humanitarian corridor in question (which cannot be qualified otherwise than as a terrorist attack), the Russian side cannot guarantee the safety of civilian dry cargo ships participating in the Black Sea initiative, and suspends its implementation from today for an indefinite period,” the Russian statement said.

Britain’s Defense Ministry had no immediate comment.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister, Dmytro Kuleba, accused Russia of playing “hunger games” by imperiling global food shipments.

“We warned about Russia’s plans to destroy the (grain agreement). Now, under false pretenses, Moscow is blocking the grain corridor that ensures food security for millions of people,” he tweeted Saturday.

The head of the Ukrainian presidential office, Andriy Yermak, denounced the suspension as “primitive blackmail.”

Turkish officials said they haven’t received any official notice of the deal’s suspension.

Russia’s agriculture minister said Moscow stands ready to “fully replace Ukrainian grain and deliver supplies at affordable prices to all interested countries.” In remarks carried by the state Rossiya 24 TV channel, Dmitry Patrushev said Moscow was prepared to “supply up to 500,000 tons of grain to the poorest countries free of charge in the next four months,” with the help of Turkey.

Patrushev also reiterated the Kremlin’s earlier allegations that a disproportionate volume of grain exported from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports was bound for European destinations.

Earlier Saturday, Ukraine and Russia offered differing versions on the Crimea drone attack in which at least one Russian ship suffered damage in the port on the Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014.

The Russian Defense Ministry said a minesweeper had “minor damage” during an alleged pre-dawn Ukrainian attack on navy and civilian vessels docked in Sevastopol, which hosts the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. The ministry claimed Russian forces had “repelled” 16 attacking drones.

The governor of the Sevastopol region, Mikhail Razvozhaev, said the port saw “probably the most massive attack” by air and sea drones. He provided no evidence, saying all video from the area would be held back for security reasons.

But an adviser to Ukraine’s Interior Ministry claimed that “careless handling of explosives” had caused blasts on four warships in Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. Anton Gerashchenko wrote on Telegram that the vessels included a frigate, a landing ship and a ship that carried cruise missiles used in a deadly July attack on a western Ukrainian city.

In other developments on Saturday, Russian troops moved large numbers of sick and wounded comrades from hospitals in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region and stripped the facilities of medical equipment, Ukrainian officials said as their forces fought to retake the province.

Kremlin-installed authorities in the mostly Russian-occupied region had previously urged civilians to leave the city of Kherson, the region’s capital — and reportedly joined the tens of thousands who fled to other Russia-held areas.

“The so-called evacuation of invaders from the temporarily occupied territory of the Kherson region, including from medical institutions, continues,” the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the Russians were “dismantling the entire health care system” in Kherson and other occupied areas.

“The occupiers have decided to close medical institutions in the cities, take away equipment, ambulances. just everything,” Zelenskyy said.

Kherson is one of four regions in Ukraine that Russian President Vladimir Putin illegally annexed last month and where he subsequently declared martial law. The others are Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia.

As Kyiv’s forces sought gains in the south, Russia kept up its shelling and missile attacks in the country’s east, Ukrainian authorities said Saturday. Three more civilians died and eight more were wounded in the Donetsk region, which has again become a front-line hotspot as Russian soldiers try to capture the city of Bakhmut, an important target in Russia’s stalled eastern offensive.

Russian shelling also an industrial building in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region. Around a quarter of the region — including its capital, also called Zaporizhzhia — remains under Ukrainian military control.

In the latest prisoner exchange, 52 Ukrainians, including two former defenders of the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, were released Saturday as part of a swap with Russia, according to Yermak. The steelworks in that bombed-out port city now symbolize Ukrainian resistance.

Also released, he said, was a sailor who defended Ukraine’s Snake Island, a strategic Black Sea outpost seized by Russia in the opening hours of the war. Others coming home were Ukrainian soldiers captured by Moscow near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant — the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster in 1986 — which Russian forces briefly occupied from February to March.

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This version has been corrected to show the Russian Defense Ministry said one ship, not two, was slightly damaged in Crimea port.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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2025 Federal Election

Liberal MP Paul Chiang Resigns Without Naming the Real Threat—The CCP

Published on April 1, 2025

By

The Opposition with Dan Knight     Dan Knight

After parroting a Chinese bounty on a Canadian citizen, Chiang exits the race without once mentioning the regime behind it—opting instead to blame “distractions” and Donald Trump.

So Paul Chiang is gone. Stepped aside. Out of the race. And if you’re expecting a moment of reflection, an ounce of honesty, or even the basic decency to acknowledge what this was really about—forget it.

In his carefully scripted resignation statement, Chiang didn’t even mention the Chinese Communist Party. Not once. He echoed a foreign bounty placed on a Canadian citizen—Joe Tay—and he couldn’t even bring himself to name the regime responsible.

Instead, he talked about… Donald Trump. That’s right. He dragged Trump into a resignation about repeating CCP bounty threats. The guy who effectively told Canadians, “If you deliver a Conservative to the Chinese consulate, you can collect a reward,” now wants us to believe the real threat is Trump?

I haven’t seen Donald Trump put bounties on Canadian citizens. But Beijing has. And Chiang parroted it like a good little foot soldier—and then blamed someone who lives 2,000 miles away.

But here’s the part you can’t miss: Mark Carney let him stay.

Let’s not forget, Carney called Chiang’s comments “deeply offensive” and a “lapse in judgment”—and then said he was staying on as the candidate. It wasn’t until the outrage hit boiling point, the headlines stacked up, and groups like Hong Kong Watch got the RCMP involved, that Chiang bailed. Not because Carney made a decision—because the optics got too toxic.

And where is Carney now? Still refusing to disclose his financial assets. Still dodging questions about that $250 million loan from the Bank of China to the firm he chaired. Still giving sanctimonious speeches about “protecting democracy” while his own caucus parrots authoritarian propaganda.

If you think Chiang’s resignation fixes the problem, you’re missing the real issue. Because Chiang was just the symptom.

Carney is the disease.

He covered for it. He excused it. He enabled it. And now he wants to pose as the man who will stand up to foreign interference?

He can’t even stand up to it in his own party.

So no, we’re not letting this go. Chiang may be gone—but the stench is still in the room. And it’s wearing a tailored suit, smiling for the cameras, and calling itself “leader of the Liberal Party.”

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Business

Trump says ‘nicer,’ ‘kinder’ tariffs will generate federal revenue

Published on March 31, 2025

By

From The Center Square

By 

President Donald Trump says the slate of tariffs he plans to announce Wednesday will be “nicer,” “kinder” and “more generous” than other countries have treated the U.S.

Trump plans to unveil reciprocal tariffs on all nations that put duties on U.S. imports Wednesday, which the president has been calling “Liberation Day” for American trade.

Trump’s latest comments on tariffs come as he aims to reshape the global economy to reduce U.S. trade deficits and generate billions in federal revenue through higher taxes on imported products.

Trump’s trade policies have upended U.S. and global markets, but the president has yet to get into specifics ahead of Wednesday’s planned announcement.

At the start of March, Trump told a joint session of Congress that he planned to put reciprocal tariffs in place starting April 2.

“Whatever they tariff us, we tariff them. Whatever they tax us, we tax them,” Trump said. “If they do non-monetary tariffs to keep us out of their market, then we do non-monetary barriers to keep them out of our market. We will take in trillions of dollars and create jobs like we have never seen before.”

On Sunday night, Trump said on Air Force One that U.S. tariffs would be “nicer,” “kinder” and “more generous” than how other countries have treated the U.S.

Last week, Trump announced a 25% tariff on imported automobiles, duties that he said would be “permanent.” The White House said it expects the auto tariffs on cars and light-duty trucks will generate up to $100 billion in federal revenue. Trump said eventually he hopes to bring in $600 billion to $1 trillion in tariff revenue in the next year or two. Trump also said the tariffs would lead to a manufacturing boom in the U.S., with auto companies building new plants, expanding existing plants and adding jobs.

Trump predicts his protectionist trade policies will create jobs, make the nation rich and help reduce both trade deficits and the federal government’s persistent deficits.

The “Liberation Day” tariffs come after months of talk since Trump took office in January. On the campaign trail, Trump frequently called “tariff” the most beautiful word in the English language.

James Dorn, senior fellow emeritus at the Cato Institute, said Trump’s rhetoric on tariffs doesn’t match the economic reality of Americans.

“Tariffs expand the scope of government, politicize economic life, increase uncertainty, and reduce individual freedom,” he wrote. “Government officials gain arbitrary power while market participants face fewer opportunities for mutually beneficial exchanges and greater uncertainty as the rules of the game change.”

Dorn said consumers would pay the price.

“Tariffs are levied on U.S. importers as goods – both final and intermediate –subject to the tariff enter the country,” he wrote. “Importers and consumers typically end up paying the tariffs, as they cut into profit margins and drive consumer prices up.”

Business groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and American Farm Bureau Federation, have urged Trump to back off tariff threats.

Trump has promised that his tariffs would shift the tax burden away from Americans and onto foreign countries, but tariffs are generally paid by the people who import the foreign products. Those importers then have a choice: absorb the loss or pass it on to consumers through higher prices. The president also promised tariffs would make America “rich as hell.”

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